Christmas Eve
We had a really nice Christmas Eve this year. Since we did Christmas Dinner on Christmas Day, we decided to just do "appetizers and desserts," you know, something small.... except when you get this many people together, it's never "small". We had so much good food, we almost decided to just repeat the menu for Dinner the next day! SUPER good. We were content to just eat and eat while the kids ran around and played outside (blessings of winter in Phoenix). Eventually we called order to the chaos and opened some presents. We have a rotation with the siblings, so we open those presents Christmas Eve. We got a TOTALLY awesome new blender (we love making smoothies & stuff, and our old one stunk!) some movies and a totally wicked iPod shuffle from John & Rebecca (thanks guys!!!). The kids all do a cousin exchange too -- so the kids who had their gifts opened those too. Our kids always get PJ's from my Grandpa, so they opened those and put them on.
After that, we did the nativity. 
Here we are off stage preparing the cast....
And here they are -- they did a wonderful job. The shepherds were very excited to see baby Jesus and worshiped him very convincingly. My mom and dad did the narration, and we sang songs that went along with the story. It was very spiritual, and despite all the kids in the middle with the wiggles, we felt the peace and love that comes with celebrating this time of year. After the little pageant, my mom gave each of us families her gift, which was an adorable nativity for us to put up each year and think of her. The best gift was a letter she enclosed in the box that had the story of how she gained her testimony, and what her testimony was. Needless to say, there were many tears shed at the gift of that letter, and the gift of my mother to each of us. She is truly a remarkable woman, and we all love her so much. We are so grateful that she is doing so well despite this aggressive cancer, and despite numerous attempts by the chemo to kill her :), she's still doing incredibly well. For those who hadn't heard, or read her blog, a week after Christmas we got the results from her 2nd PET scan, and it shows the cancer hasn't progressed at all, which is a total miracle. So, it was a great night, and we went home feeling warm and snuggly and ready for Christmas the next day.
And here they are -- they did a wonderful job. The shepherds were very excited to see baby Jesus and worshiped him very convincingly. My mom and dad did the narration, and we sang songs that went along with the story. It was very spiritual, and despite all the kids in the middle with the wiggles, we felt the peace and love that comes with celebrating this time of year. After the little pageant, my mom gave each of us families her gift, which was an adorable nativity for us to put up each year and think of her. The best gift was a letter she enclosed in the box that had the story of how she gained her testimony, and what her testimony was. Needless to say, there were many tears shed at the gift of that letter, and the gift of my mother to each of us. She is truly a remarkable woman, and we all love her so much. We are so grateful that she is doing so well despite this aggressive cancer, and despite numerous attempts by the chemo to kill her :), she's still doing incredibly well. For those who hadn't heard, or read her blog, a week after Christmas we got the results from her 2nd PET scan, and it shows the cancer hasn't progressed at all, which is a total miracle. So, it was a great night, and we went home feeling warm and snuggly and ready for Christmas the next day.
2 comments:
You totally look like you're stepping on Preston in that picture! I guess that's what he gets for laying on the floor! Ha ha! :)
Oh that is so cute that the kids made something for each other! our kids made presents for us this year. it was so fun. We are defiantly thinking of doing that again.
Seriously I love your new look! Did you make that yourself? Super cute!
Post a Comment